diets that work fast and cheap

10 horrifying confessions of fast food workers many of us often joke about restaurant employeesspitting in our food, or giving us a product that’ll lead to projectile vomiting andextended bathroom breaks, but we tend not to think too much about it most of the timebecause it can be rather worrying. however, it is important sometimes to know what maybe done to your food, and how the industry is dealing with the current issues they facefrom disgruntled employees, and a culture of speed that makes following proper healthprocedures difficult. if your new year’s resolution is to drop a few pounds, maybethis list will help you avoid ordering that next big mac.

10. starbucks barista admits to giving regularwhen people ordered decaf many people rely on their coffee to get themgoing in the morning, and always make a trip to the coffee shop to start their day. sometimesthese people are rude, and the baristas who work at the store decide to find some pettyway to get back at this person who made their life more difficult. while it’s rare forsomeone to spit in a drink or perform unhygienic forms of tampering, there are many less obviousthings a barista can do. many baristas have admitted to giving decaf to people who arerude to them, and it’s pretty much impossible to tell if they did. for many addicts there’sa certain placebo affect involved and it’s not like there’s a noticeable differencein taste, especially in a giant espresso drink

full of milk and sugared syrups. now, as mean as this is, it’s not goingto cause anyone any health problems and at worst someone might not be quite as alert.while this is absolutely not something someone should do, there is a barista who has admittedto worse, saying he has given caffeine to people who asked for decaf. this can havevery serious health implications, as some people have very valid health reasons forbeing unable to drink caffeine. while the barista claimed that he made sure they didn’tlook visibly pregnant or anything, most health issues caused by caffeine are not somethingyou can so easily spot. 9. many fast food workers admit to cominginto work sick

there are stringent rules in place in orderto ensure that no food service worker is handling the stuff you are going to eat while they’resick. there are laws that mandate that if an employer or employee thinks they are sick,they’re to be sent home rather than continue working in a food service environment. unfortunatelyhowever, oftentimes things don’t work out how they are supposed to in practice. foodservice is incredibly high paced with quick turnover of employees, lots of call outs andoften very tight scheduling. this means one person leaving can absolutely ruin a shift,and there is often a lot of pressure on employees to forget the rules and come to work if humanlypossible at all, even if you are somewhat sick.

there is also the personal pressure in termsof wages – fast food workers do not get paid sick leave for days like that, and alreadytend to get less than full time unless they are management, and rely on hourly pay. fora food service worker living paycheck to paycheck, calling in sick can be a life ruining disaster.in a survey reported by fox news about the food service industry, a majority of fastfood workers have admitted that all or most of the time, they have found a way to go intowork when sick. clearly something in the industry needs to change – employees should not feelthe need to come to work sick, and never, ever should. 8. burger king employee posts video of himselftaking a bath at work

lots of people do stupid things while boredat work, but one burger king employee a few years back went way too far, losing himselfhis job, and probably making it difficult to find more jobs in the future. the employeein question gave himself the nickname “mr. unstable” and posted a video of himselfon youtube, doing something extremely disturbing in the store he worked in. in the video, theburger king employee appears to be naked, and is covered in soap bubbles sitting inthe store’s giant utility sink in the back. this sink is the one where they was all theirdishes, which then go on to contain all the foods you eat at your favorite store. naturally, the employee was fired quicklyby the company, which obviously doesn’t

condone people using their back sinks as animpromptu shower and then putting it online for viral hits and attention. several otheremployees lost their jobs for their parts filming the incident – and not putting astop to it as well – and the health department was sent out to make sure the store was inproper compliance. apart from the antics of mr. unstable, the store checked out just fine. 7. fast food employee admits lots of drugdealing going on a mcdonald’s employee who wanted to remainanonymous, for obvious reasons – no company wants an unofficial spokesman talking to thenews – had some very interesting things to say about his store. he claimed to haveworked at one of the top 500 mcdonald’s

restaurants in the entire country, and actuallyhad many positive things to say about his experience. in fact, this particular employeecan make us all feel good, saying that he is certain no unhygienic tampering of foodever happened at his store. while it certainly does happen at some places, it shows thatthere are always some restaurant locations that will do their very best to put theirfoot down and make sure that kind of thing never happens. however, he did admit as well that many ofhis fellow employees have sold marijuana to customers in the parking lot in order to makesome extra bucks, and that they have actually given free or extra food to people who comein high. in fact, they call people who come

to the place to get high in the parking lotafter eating “ents” and actually don’t mind them at all because they mind their ownbusiness and just look like they are eating. he points out that many customers who comein high are paranoid about getting caught, but the employees would never report themfor that alone, and are at worst amused by the customers’ intoxicated confusion. 6. wendy’s employee admits to smoking bluntwhile working a couple years ago a customer went to a wendy’slocation for one of their famous square shaped hamburgers. at first, her order went off withouta hitch. however, it wasn’t until she had paid, got home and started eating that sherealized something was seriously amiss. she

was chewing through her sandwich, and noticedthe taste was obviously not right, nor was the consistency. after inspecting it carefully,she realized there was a half-finished blunt in her sandwich. she immediately got the storeand the police involved, and the store location was quickly investigated. the employee on sandwiches who had made herfood almost instantly admitted to having the blunt and smoking while working. in her confusionfrom being high, she accidentally misplaced her blunt inside the customer’s sandwich.the employee in question was not only fired, but was also arrested for the incident. inthe meantime, the customer had symptoms of food poisoning and actually ended up in thehospital. while we don’t know if the customer

actually got seriously ill from the bluntor not, we do know the franchisee readily agreed to pay any necessary medical expensesfor the customer. frankly, this is the kind of behavior you’d expect from jack in thebox, not wendy’s. 5. drug abuse is shockingly common in foodservice a study back in july of 2007 found that amongall profession categories, the largest percentage of employees who abuse illegal drugs actuallyworked in the food service industry. this can seem counter intuitive, as many peoplemight expect that it would be something more like long haul truckers or perhaps medicalpersonnel who have to stay alert for incredibly long hours at a time. however, the fact ofthe matter is that food service is an incredibly

fast paced and stressful profession that caneasily burn people out, so they turn to drugs to get through the day – just ask celebritychef anthony bourdain, who has talked and written extensively about this phenomenon. to make matters worse, many restaurants andbars that serve alcohol have relaxed policies in terms of when their employees are allowedto drink on shift. this can create a culture where many of the employees are at least partiallyintoxicated during their shifts, which leads to more stupid mistakes, and all kinds ofpotential liability issues. some restaurants see what this is doing to their business,and are trying to take steps to prevent rampant drug abuse, but it’s an uphill battle. ina world with that kind of fast paced pressure,

people will take whatever they can to cope. 4. a shocking number of fast food workershave knowingly stolen many people suspect that fast food and otherfood service employees are taking food or other things when they get the chance. ofcourse, we all know there are some honest people who would never consider such a thing,but there are always those who are desperate enough, or just enjoy the thrill of the game.and while we know from popular culture that theft happens, and that oftentimes employeeswill give free stuff to people they like – a different kind of theft, but theft all thesame – many people don’t realize just how much this kind of behavior actually goesdown in these establishments. a random survey

conducted from hundreds of random fast foodchains from two different major companies – kept unnamed – concluded that an absolutelyshocking number of employees admitted to stealing from their employer. well over half of employees surveyed admittedto taking money, or to taking food or other items without paying for them. stealing companytime was also incredibly common, especially those in managerial positions with salary,who could abuse the system very easily that way. even employees who didn’t steal wereoften surveyed as admitting taking part by watching and not saying anything when someoneelse was stealing. probably the most common theft item by far is simply employees eatingfood without paying for it, a form of theft

that can still cost the company countlessamounts of money over the years. 3. a former mcdonald’s manager shares somechoice secrets while it is impossible to verify, as the managerremained anonymous, a former longtime mcdonald’s manager shared some choice secrets onlineabout what he experienced over the years. while some employees will tell you they don’tsee food tampering at their stores, this particular manager says he saw all kinds of horriblethings. he’s seen people spit on food when they were angry, but he’s also seen themstomp on it and do all kinds of other horrible things. if someone asks them to make surethey make them a fresh burger, he says that sometimes the employees will get angry withthe request, and will instead dunk a dry old

burger in grease to make it seem fresh. the manager has also claimed that he oncehad another manager threaten to fire him because he didn’t want to use old lettuce that hadgone brown. of course, he kept his job despite putting his foot down, but other employeesmight not have had the guts to say no. he also claims that if people ask for specialorder fries, an employee would often find a way to mess them up, generally by undercookingthem if they couldn’t think of anything more clever. in terms of all the evil thingshe’s seen people do to food, he simply asks us to “use our imagination”, which isquite a horrifying thought. 2. norovirus spreads mostly because of relaxedfood safety standards from workers

norovirus is a virus that can cause all kindsof lovely symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting, and other stomach issues – which are alsothe pain symptoms people tend to report when they say they got “food poisoning”. ina study last year, perhaps unsurprisingly to some, the center for disease control foundthat the majority of norovirus outbreaks were due to food service workers who were not followingproper hygienic practices and procedures. an alarming number of the cases they tracedled back to employees who did not wear gloves on their hands at all. in response to theseissues over the years, the federal standards, as well as those at a state level, have beentargeted towards ensuring food service workers are staying home while sick, and wearing glovesproperly while working.

unfortunately, sometimes gloves are not enough.if gloves are not changed out often, and proper practices are not followed while wearing them,they aren’t really helping. the mcdonald’s manager in the above entry admits to seeingemployees go to the restroom, take out trash, and do all kinds of other things while theywere wearing their food service gloves, making them less than useless. another employee froma sushi restaurant explains that he dislikes the glove standards, because it makes it harderfor him to properly feel the rice as he is crafting the food and creating a work of art. 1. workers admit sexual harassment is rampantin restaurant industry when many of us think of fast food workersand sex, we think of rather young employees

who decide to go take a quick “break”with another coworker in the walk in. however, the truth is that while sexually natured commentsand other issues are common at food service workplaces, it is rarely a truly reciprocalor fair relationship. many employees who work in the industry say that sexual innuendo andother inappropriate comments are pretty much normal, and that they really don’t expectmuch to be done about it. for some employees, playing along and joking back is about theonly real defense that they feel they can use. perhaps this is because, according toa recent survey done of food service workers and their relationship with the issue of sexualharassment, the comments are often coming from those in a position of authority.

according to the survey, well over half ofmen in the industry and roughly two thirds of the women have faced sexual harassmentnot just from their coworkers, but from members of the actual management team. while employeesface even more harassment from their normal coworkers, and often a sizeable amount fromcustomers as well, the manager harassment is by far the worst. some employees reportit being a weekly ordeal, and with their tormentor being in a position of power over them, itcan lead to terrible situations.

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